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Mayor Charlie Hales will take on Last Thursday again, possibly proposing fees, early closure

Last Thursday: Is this the last one?

PORTLAND, OREGON -- June 27, 2013 -- The city stepped in to close Northeast Alberta Street and temporarily take over some of the management tasks performed by the committee for last year's event. Allison Milligan/The Oregonian
(Allison Milligan/The Oregonian)

Mayor Charlie Hales will begin talking about the future of Last Thursday again. Hales’ policy assistant Chad Stover will meet with Northeast Portland residents Monday night to float some of the mayor’s ideas about reining in this year’s arts festival. The festival begins again May 29.

A group of Northeast Alberta Street artists created Last Thursday in 1997 as an alternative to The Pearl's tonier First Thursday. Neighbors say the festival, which brings between 15,000 and 20,000 visitors a month to the Northeast neighborhood, has become unruly in recent years.

The art walk became an all-night party spilling from Alberta, a busy commercial strip, into quieter residential streets. Neighbors said they often found people urinating or defecating in their yards and cars double parked or blocking driveways. They begged city leaders for help.

Hales stepped in last year, hoping to balance competing demands from neighbors, artists and businesses. City staff had some successes -- they ended the party earlier and cut down on garbage left behind -- but volunteers still charted about 200 “livability incidents.”

Hales does not have a concrete proposal for this year’s Last Thursday yet, Haynes said, but he is considering charging vendors a fee. Haynes said the mayor’s office hasn’t figured out the “sweet spot” of how much such a fee would cost or which types of vendors would have to pay. Stover’s visit to the Northeast Coalition of Neighbors meeting will be the beginning of those talks.

The mayor and his staff will continue taking about changes in May and June, with an eye toward possible implementation in July, Haynes said.

“But that is not set in stone,” Haynes said.

Five city bureaus worked on Last Thursday last year. Stover said then that the city can't funnel so much time and money into any single street fair, no matter its prominence.

Haynes said the mayor also thinks “it’s probably a good idea to close Last Thursday a little earlier.”

Hales last year suggested closing the event, which begins at 6 p.m., at 9 p.m. Some people balked, and the festival wound up wrapping up closer to 10 p.m. most months.